Wedding planning choices deplete....

An experimental psychologist at the University of Minnesota, Vohs is lead author of a new study in the May issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in which she argues that making decisions -- something most of us are forced to do countless times each day -- lessens our ability to control our impulses.
In Vohs' view, choosing one option over another is a uniquely depleting experience, one that makes us more likely to indulge in bad habits.

I think we can all vouch for this in some form or other. Whether you've purged your closet down to only the clothes you really like and then find each morning a little easier when you open the closet. Or if you know exactly what you want, go to the store, find it, and leave. It's a great feeling.

I know that I don't get out as much with two small children but when I do I am CONSTANTLY having to maintain self control over even the smallest things. It's like this entire universe of stuff I don't need just calls my name when it's in front of my eyes. This is one area being married has helped me. I now do not do impulse buys and if I do buy something unplanned I strongly justify it in my head before buying it, take it home and almost already prepare to return it if my "justification" doesn't pass the "husband test." It has greatly reduced the junk I bring in the house!

Weddings have a million choices. Even just picking a wedding vendor isn't simple. You have to CHOSE where to even begin your search - magazines, asking people, websites. Then you have to narrow down who you will call, then you have to set up interviews (chosing times on that and whether you'll bring your mom or fiance), then listen to the vendor and chose whether you will sign the deal or keep looking. Even if you do sign a contract there are a million choices within the vendors options.

I was lucky that we found most wedding vendors through word of mouth. This meant I never interviewed more than one vendor and signed right away, taking out a huge burden initially. And because we had a certain mentality about our wedding - it's about the mood and our friends, NOT about spending a lot of money, it made it easier. Our wedding food was "Just fine", nothing special, our flowers were just fine (my bridal bouquet was very lovely), our reception spot was just fine - the church basement. We had a wonderful wedding because it was about the people we love. And while we didn't spend as much as the national average, we also didn't feel cheated! That is one of the reasons I hate wedding budget talk - the implication is that you either have to spend hundreds of hours "doing-it-yourself" to save money (but what about your TIME?!), or you have to cut important corners by having a morning wedding with punch when everyone has an evening wedding. For some people that's just great but for many of us I think we want our cake and eat it too! :) We have to stand up for what we believe in and what we value and let all the comparisons and wedding magazine photos go by the wayside. They show a reality most of us don't participate in and even worse, the don't show the reality of what is really going on - strained parent relationships, fighting, stress and bitterness that may develop when you plan a high stakes wedding.

I don't have the magic answer to having a wedding on a budget, but I do know that if more of us built a community of support, it would be much easier to make all those wedding decisions and not feel cheated or stressed. Unfortunately those wedding communities by their very nature can't be on the major national wedding websites whose primary revenue comes from the high end advertisers who want us to spend a ton of money on our wedding. If all the brides were frugal the advertisers would not support the website and in turn the website would go away...

So just how do we TAKE BACK OUR WEDDING?!

A White House wedding or simple wedding?

What would YOU do if you could have a glamorous, high profile White House Wedding? It shows the power of Jenna Bush and what a wedding means to her to chose to not be married there. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24253691/

When she and her fiancé, Henry Hager, started to make plans for their May 10 wedding, the option of the glamorous White House wedding was available to them. And, perhaps to the surprise of many, they rejected it in favor of a private ceremony with a guest list of just 200.
“I guess it maybe says we’re crazy,” Jenna said with a laugh as she explained the decision. “I wanted to be at home, and I wanted it to feel natural and I wanted it to be a private thing. It’s the one day of my life — it happens once — that I want to have a private time with Henry and my family. Plus, I’m not that glamorous. I’m more an outdoor type.”

It makes me think about the wedding magazines I have laying around the house. My husband will take one while he's in the bathroom and admits even he gets sucked into those glamorous ads for wedding locations. You fantasize about what your wedding would be like and then you have to stop yourself. What if you are absolutely NOT a glamorous person and it all makes you nervous? What if your family is very down-to-earth and would feel really uncomfortable in a swank place? Or what if you have an upper crust family and want to get married in a less glamorous place?

Ultimately many of us get a surprise when the "perfect wedding" myth hits home. Our families don't like champagne, or they don't own a tux or can't afford one for a black tie event, or they're afraid to drive in a big city, or they won't travel if it's not in their city. Heck, the fact that everyone doesn't stand and salut to every demand or wish we have is surprising enough! Isn't this OUR DAY? The day to be a princess?

It is funny, this notion of being a princess for a day. If you know about Princess Diana's wedding which arguably changed the wedding culture in the early 80's, she had almost no control or choice! Tradition and legacy dictated every aspect to her big day. So what happened that we now think we deserve to be "all about us"? That's for another post! :)

Wedding canceled because of food disagreement

I found this online:

One has heard of marriages getting cancelled over demands for dowry. It is seldom that a marriage is called off over an issue as trivial as the demand for serving a specific delicacy, in this case aam ras, to the relatives of the groom. However, this did happen on April 17 ...

Clearly there is a lot more going on and this took place in India. But I thought you'd enjoy the oddity of it!

Out of town wedding guests

I was just purusing the internet and found an interesting survey from mywedding.com though I don't know how many respondents they had.


How many out-of-town guests are attending your wedding?
29% say Less than 25% of the guest list
24% say About 50% of the guest list
17% say More than 75% of the guest list
15% say About 25% of the guest list
15% say About 75% of the guest list

In summary then, about 4 in 10 brides has just a quarter or less of out of towners (meaning they are probably living and wedding in the same place and they have perhaps lived a closer life with family and friends...)

So 6 of 10 brides has at least half or more of their wedding guests from out of town. This reflects our mobile society, people going away to college and meeting new friends who move away again after graduation. Families split up (relatives) all over the country, and people just don't stay put anymore!

Out of town wedding guests present a lot of interesting relationship "stuff" in wedding planning. Things like:

• are they more or less likely to attend your wedding because of travel?
• do they require extra attention (save the dates) or extra time (invitations being sent out) to be able to plan for your wedding?
• how does an out of town guest know they are invited - even a save the date may be too late if you have a hot wedding month and they don't know if they can leave town for your own event
• do you book all price ranges of hotels because of affordability issues or do you try to get all the guests in one hotel that isn't too low-grade for some guests but not too expensive for your poor friends?
• are the majority from one place and is there any major event (or weather) in their area that might prevent them from being able to attend?
• do you feel obligated to get them out of town gift bags - a growing trend? I did this for all my out of town guests (I had people from 14 states and all our rehearsal dinner was out of towners except my parents!) where I put a bag of goodies in their hotel rooms before they arrived. This adds expense and time but also a personal touch (I wrote a personal note to each person on their bag.)
• do you reassess your relationships, particularly with friends, when sending out a wedding invitation? In other words, if the same friend was in town would you easily invite them, but because these people are out of town you might not because you don't know if you're close enough to justify the expense they'll incur to be at your wedding?
• the "are children invited?" factor is much more problematic when inviting out of towners. You can't expect guests to find a weekend babysitter back home or to put their kids in a hotel with a strange and expensive baby sitter.
• the time of year - out of towners not used to your weather may have big struggles or stress. We could not, being in Minnesota, POSSIBLY have a winter weather with a huge portion of our out of town guests being from the South. They would have had a terrible time driving, not owning the proper winter clothing, and the entire experience would just be more stressful on everyone.

So it appears many of us have the same stress and issues in dealing with out of towners.

Mini-moons are gaining popularity

Another moon is rising in the sky of romance - a mini-moon.

It's sort of a quickie honeymoon, taken when newlyweds put off their major honeymoon trip and go off on a short getaway instead.

Want to know our spin on this trend? Read on.

The article and movement seems to lack the recognition as a society that a honeymoon is the once-in-a-life-time, unique opportunity to escape post wedding. It is a time when everyone expects you to be gone - family, employers, friends. It is a time to reconnect, decompress, process the wedding, and is that final bridge that gets you from "single but dating" to "we have wedding rings! You are now my husband and I'm your wife! It is even magical for those you come into contact with on the honeymoon. Like pregnant women and new babies, honeymooners elicit a sort of happy sign from people who remember the glory of that newly married time or who see it as the most romantic of all times the couple will experience as a married couple. Honeymooners know they can get free upgrades on planes, hotels, free desserts, and get a lot of smiles from people on their honeymoon travels plus a lot of "how was the wedding" questions.

While a honeymoon a year later may be more practical, financially, I am not sure it would then be a honeymoon. In essence you have given up the honeymoon and are just taking a vacation as a married couple (a wonderful practice but not with the same decompression as the honeymoon right after the wedding.) Or perhaps not a vacation but an anniversary-trip, not something I'm dissing at all, but anniversary celebrations imply celebrating the time you've spent already married. A honeymoon is the fresh beginning of married life.

This movement also begs the question: what has happened in the wedding planning world that it is too hard to plan for your own couple getaway to celebrate, alone, the transition from single to married? When the message out there is that "It's your day, do what you want!" why would you take away from yourself the single time of the wedding that is truly about you - the honeymoon, where no guests are invited (or expect to be there), when your employer doesn't even schedule important meetings for those days or weeks after the wedding date and simply asks "how long" you will be gone rather than "if" you'll be gone.

So perhaps it's a financial strain. I get that, I really do. But even that argument makes me wonder, how many guests at your wedding would rather eat a fancy steak than see you and your spouse-to-be enjoy a really nice honeymoon? Are guests really hoping to get a super nice meal, a fancy wedding favor, and then see you back at work on Monday!? If given the choice, I think most wedding guests would prefer to see a more moderate wedding with a happy couple who can then enjoy themselves on a honeymoon, rather than a high-end wedding filled with stress and debt with no post-wedding, honeymoon bliss.

Should I invite my dad and other "should I's"

So I'm reading in a bridal magazine and hoping the answer isn't what I think it's going to be... and it is:

"My father has never taken responsibility for me, except when it was convenient for him. Even though I know he loves me, he breaks all his promises. He won't be walking me down the aisle, but now I'm questioning whether I should invite him at all for fear of his ruining my special day. Part of me says, Why should I invite him? He's never been there for me. But he is my father. What do I do?

Answer:

If you don't feel comfortable inviting him, you shouldn't feel pressure to do it. "You don't have to invite him just because he's your father," says long-time family therapist...."

It makes me so sad that our culture has decided the wedding day is not about family, but about the bride, groom and whatever their immediate emotions are and current relationships. Sometimes family really sucks. Sometimes our parents really disapoint us. But unless they are abusive, and even then, it should be a HUGE, rare deal to uninvite a parent to your wedding.

The problems with not inviting the dad are many:
1 - is the JOY you get at not having him there greater than the pain and agony he'll experience for the rest of his entire LIFE at you not letting him show up for your big day?
2 - he's the reason you exist, he's got his issues, but what happens if and when you reconcile with him? How much regret will you experience having to tell your future children that "mommy was mad at granddaddy and told him he couldn't come?" And better still, how will that not teach your own children that parenthood is not a permanent thing but based on the whim of the child as to whether a parent should be involved in one of the largest days of your life.
3 - you aren't just hurting dad but your siblings, your family and even your spouse for not letting this man experience the joy of seeing you, and the joy of HIS loved ones participating in your big day, together, as a big family.
4 - cut offs take two to tango. Are you sure you really want to play the game? Are you sure you won't have a single regret should he pass away suddenly, or should you come to peace with his irresponsible ways?

And a note on family therapy. The world of family therapy involves being trained in "family systems", a model similar to a biological model whereby everything is interrelated and interconnected. If you work on one spouse, that will have ripple effects on the other spouse, the relationship and extended family. But one thing family therapists are told NOT to be is pro-family. They are trained in supposed "values-neutral" approaches to problems whereby what is going to make an individual the happiest is the best solution - regardless of the short term, long term, personal or family "costs" to the decision. You can read a lot more on my father and co-founder of The First Dance, Bill's website at http://www.drbilldoherty.org

So what would I say to that bride? You love him. He loves you. He's not perfect, nor are you. Do you really think it's worth giving back to him what he gave you to - emotional distancing and avoidance? Do you really wish that pain on him or do you see a new way to go about life - one filled with forgiveness, or at the very least, one-day-forgiveness for such an important day of your life. Afterall, what are you going to tell your kids some day and what will it teach them about the parent/child relationship? That it's voluntary and if they're mad at you some day you will be uninvited to their weddings?